


Promises, Promises

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 09:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12504300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: “You’re supposed to be dead!” Buffy screamed at Spike. “How could you let me think you were dead?”Assumes familiarity with seasons six and seven





	Promises, Promises

**Author's Note:**

> Story took me forever. This is based on a dream I had after my late husband died (for real). Fortunately, dreams can't get bruised when you're beating them up in the anger stage.  
> Betaed by ZabJade and Bewildered, thanks for reading and rereading and beating me over the head with "Just post the thing already!"  
> Thanks to nmcil for the beautiful banners, I had a hard time choosing my favorite. Bonus at the end, because I loved the Buffy Biting Spike image.

 

_ “The five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.”  _

_ Anger: When the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals. Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: "It's not fair!"; "How can this happen?"; "Who is to blame?" _

_ The  _ **_ Kübler-Ross model _ ** _ , or the  _ **_ Five Stages of Grief. _ **

  
  


Summer, 2002. Africa. 

 

   Battle. Torture. Trials. Creatures and monsters and random fireburns had been tormenting him for days. Now they were in his head.  _ Let go, _ they whispered.  _ Let it end. A soul isn’t worth all this. _

   He wasn’t sure if the whispers were something the soul finder demon was creating himself, or if it was just his own mind amplifying the things he’d been saying to himself since he started this torturous helltrip.

_ She’ll never love you. Even with a soul. Why fight the inevitable? _

   “I can’t... face her... without...!”

_  Don’t. Don’t go back to her. Just die with us. Let your legacy fall to dust. _

   “No!”

_    It would be peace. It would be quiet. It would end this pain.... _

   Which sodding pain? The pain of the torture, or the vision of Buffy’s twisted face? Or maybe, just maybe, how it felt to be without her? Because that was more torturous than every time she beat him or put him down or scorched him with her hatred.

_  All of it! It would end all of it! The fire and the burning and the broken heart. Let it end... let yourself fail... let it die...! _

   And he could feel it. The whispers, worming into his self, clawing through his head, making him fall apart from the inside. He could almost feel the dust forming around his heart. The pain easing... he could feel it... fading into the dust... blown away on the wind... such peace....

   “No!”

   He wrenched his way from the vision or whatever it was. The whispers grew louder, burning him, screeching in his ears, tearing him from the inside out just like the pain in his heart. “I will... not... let... go!” He tossed his arms and a dozen tiny fanged demons were thrown from his flesh. Where they had bitten him were tiny red marks as they had secured themselves to his body and, by extension, his psyche.

   The baby creatures flailed and died as Spike dislodged them, their food source – his vampiric flesh – the only thing that had been keeping them alive. The shadowy soul-finder chuckled softly. Spike glared. “Bring on the next trial,” he insisted.

   “They were offering you peace,” the soul-finder said. “You wanted it. You’ve wanted to die since before you walked in here.” He took a step closer to Spike, who held his fists ready. “Why wouldn’t you listen to them?”

   Spike’s eyes narrowed, his face hard. “I made a promise to a lady.”

 

***

Winter, 2002. Sunnydale. 

   “You promised you’d stop following me around.”

   “No I didn’t,” Spike smirked. “You said you were leaving, and I said go right ahead. Not the same thing.”

   Buffy glared at Spike in the light of the parking lot. Spike was getting to be seriously dangerous to Buffy’s sense of normalcy. She kept throwing him away, and like a boomerang he kept coming the hell back.

   She hadn’t meant to go to his place tonight. She’d  _ meant _ to go right past. There was a particularly nasty thing killing sheep or something down by the river, it had nearly gotten someone the night before, and it was scaring locals, so she’d decided to go down to Riverside Park and check it out. And, well, Spike’s crypt just _ happened _ to be between her house and the Riverside parking lot, and Buffy had decided to just check and see if he knew anything about it, and... well....

   One thing led to another.

   But it hadn’t been a real thing, she’d even ended it quickly tonight. Really quickly. Like, after only forty minutes. Or an hour. Or... something. Not long at all. Really. And the fact that it was getting on toward dawn was only because she’d started late, right? Right?

   God, she was in trouble. Fucking Spike was fucking addictive. And it was becoming a very, very bad fucking habit.

   She’d left him in a flurry of annoyance that he had been remarkably casual about. “Yeah, yeah, love,” he’d muttered as she hurriedly donned her rumpled clothes. “Same old, same old. See you next time.”

   “There’s not going to  _ be _ a next time!” Buffy insisted.

   “Right.”

   “I mean it this time!”

   “Promise?” Spike asked sarcastically.

   “Well… yeah!” Buffy said, flummoxed for a moment. “I do. You’re out of my life, I’m not doing this again.”

   “Uh-huh.”

   “It’s wrong,” she insisted. “It’s disgusting. It’s obscene.”

   “It’s hot,” Spike said with an infuriating smirk that almost had her falling to her knees in front of him.

   She clenched her fists. “It’s done.”

   He rolled his eyes. “Care to try a new tune, slayer?” His voice went high and seductive, like a woman on a porno. “ _ Goodnight, Wesley, good work, sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning. _ ” He’d leaped to his feet and grabbed at her hair. She grunted, as the pain hit that perfect point between  _ Ow _ and  _ Oh _ . She’d partly cut her hair hoping he wouldn’t be able to do that again.... She hadn’t cut it short enough. She shivered, and it wasn’t with annoyance. “At least tell it like it bloody well is,” Spike hissed into her face. “ _ Ta ta for now. Back once my mates drive me 'round the bend again, and I need my fix. _ ”

   “You are not a fix for anything!” she insisted. “Let go.”

   “Why?”

   “I have a demon to slay.”

   “And?”

   “And I’m leaving,” she insisted.

   “Are we now.”

   She glared. “Yes.  _ I  _ am.” She pushed him away and he finally released her hair.

   “Sounds fun.”

   “You’re staying here.”

   “Am I.”

   “I mean it, Spike. Just stay the hell away from me.”

   She probably shouldn’t have given him an order like that. Spike had a tendency to do the exact opposite of what she said. Here it was, less than half an hour later, and Spike was at her heels like a faithful puppy.

   “Do you do this  _ just _ to annoy me?” she demanded.

   Spike grinned. “Maybe.”

   She rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you had enough fun for tonight?”

   “Fun?” his eyebrow raised. “You call your latest version of Kick-the-Spike  _ fun? _ ” He made a rueful noise. “You’re with me, but you’re not, you want me but you don’t, you’re in my life but you can’t live with it. You think that’s fun?” He shook his head. “It’s a bloody nightmare, pet, and you know it.”

   “Then what the hell are you following me around for?”

   He shrugged. “Need to get a good kill in,” he said, and she actually completely believed it. The resentment lodged in his voice was not an act. She really was charging him up, and it wasn’t as if he was going to kill  _ her _ . “You said you were on a way to a demon.”

   “Yeah!” Buffy snapped. “ _ My _ demon, that  _ I’m _ going to slay. And  _ you _ are going the hell back.”

   “You’re both going back,” said a dark voice behind them. “To hell!”

   Buffy turned with a more deeply annoyed glare. “Hey! The bad jokes are my department, buster!”

   And she stopped. She looked up. And up. And blinked. Most demons were roughly human sized, if a bit in the hulking department. Those that weren’t tended to be of the screeching, animal variety. Not this beastie. The thing was humanoid, made of what looked like interlocking plates of armor, and glared down on them with fiery eyes that seemed made of molten lava. It was also nine goddamn feet tall.

   “Spike?” Buffy said in a tiny voice. “On second thought? You can stay.”

   “Yeh,” Spike said, staring up at the thing. “Thanks for the invite.”

   Buffy wasn’t exactly _ scared _ , but she sure as hell hadn’t been expecting something of this stature from the only-semi-lethal reports she’d received. But then, what was to be expected? The thing was huge. Of course anyone who had even seen even its shadow would have run for the hills. A vampire was more dangerous, because it could hide and get close. This thing....

   Was probably still dangerously dangerous.

   “Uh, slayer?” Spike asked. “I ask just for confirmation, but those aren’t Mardi Gras beads, are they.”

   Buffy blinked and stared at the necklace around the demon’s shoulders. Strung onto what looked like barbed wire were many large, lumpy things that, due to the giant’s size, needed a double take to interpret. They looked too small to be what they were, but no. Spike was right. “Yeah, no. Those look like heads to me.”

   They were. Heads in various stages of decomposition. Several animals, some sheep, a couple demons, even something that looked like a miniature horse. And at least two were clearly human.

   “You ready?” Buffy asked Spike.

   “Uh. I thought you wanted to slay this thing alone?” Spike said.

   Buffy’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t take them off the giant. “Very funny.”

   “Yeah,” Spike said. “Barrel of laughs, me.” He looked up at the giant. “Hey there, mate. I don’t suppose you want to chat a bit?”

   “Spike!” Buffy snapped. “The thing is sporting human heads like they came from Tiffany’s!”

   “Yeah?” he asked. “And?”

_ “And?” _

   “He’s got some beasties on there, too, I like a good quart of horseblood now and then.” He looked back up. “What do you say? We watch The Godfather, rip up some horse, maybe share a pint of pony?”

   The creature swung a fist the size of a pumpkin at Spike, and he jumped out of the way. “Well, that answers that question. I don’t think we’re gonna be mates.”

   “You are utterly unredeemable!” Buffy snapped at Spike.

   “I have my good bits!” 

   “Name one!” Buffy insisted.

   Spike looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

   "Name something else!" Buffy snapped, too irritated to comment that the  _that_  he was smirking over was evil in the extreme.

   “Well. Still trust me with Dawn, right?” he insisted. 

   Buffy glared. His promise to guard Dawn had been a game changer. Still. “You’re still an evil reprobate.”

   “And  _ you _ aren’t paying enough attention!” Spike barked, just as the giant’s fist swung toward Buffy. But that was where he was wrong. She knew exactly what was happening. She jumped onto the giant’s wrist, balanced on one delicately poised foot, and jammed her stake into the area where its heart should have been, if there hadn’t been a head blocking the spot.

   The giant swirled, and Buffy flipped backwards onto the ground beside Spike, her breath coming fast. “Ew,” she said, glaring at the slime on her own wrist. “Those heads are rotting.”

   “What did you expect?” Spike asked.

   “I don’t see you jumping into the fray!” Buffy snapped at him. “Is this the great protector?” 

   “You’re not Dawn.” 

   “ _ What? _ ”

   Spike laughed. “I’ll hang about. Though seems you’re doing just fine yourself, love — whoops!”

   Spike himself did not jump out of the way in time, and cursed himself for bantering as he found himself grabbed by the head, scooped up by the giant demon’s massive hand. He dangled like a marionette, his neck making cracking noises as his spine was lengthened, but nothing had broken yet. He kicked and flailed, and Buffy made a strange sound behind him, something between a yelp and a scream of frustration.

   “Hey!” she snapped. “If anyone’s gonna hang Spike, it’s me!” She flung herself back at the giant, reaching for his delicate bits to yank, but the creature was really big. It kicked at her, and she went sailing off the edge of the parking lot, and into the fence of some farmer’s field. Some disgruntled sheep fled  _ baaing _ into the darkness.

   Spike was on his own. He vamped up and yanked at one of the fingers gripping his skull, getting it into biting range of his fangs. With a snarl he chomped down, and the giant barked in pain. He shook Spike off roughly, sending him down into the gravel. Buffy hadn’t made it back into the fight yet. Spike was on his own for the moment.

   Well, the giant couldn’t fight if it couldn’t see. Spike picked a handful of the dirt he was lying on, jumped to his feet, and threw the dust into the creature’s face. It howled and kicked out again with its truly excellent feet. The kick connected, and to Spike’s chagrin, he found himself flying, just like Buffy.

   Unlike Buffy, however, Spike had the misfortune to head straight for a tree. He shielded his heart with his hands to protect himself against a live-wood staking, but he did nothing to guard his head. It connected to the wood with an ugly thump, and he fell limp as a ragdoll, landing with a splash he did not hear into the river.

   Buffy picked herself up, dazed, but unfazed. The t-bar fence pole she’d run into had snapped at a patch of rust. She picked the pole up as a weapon, ripping it from the rusty twisted fence wire, and headed right back into the fray.

   Spike was nowhere to be seen. Last she’d seen him he’d been dangling by the head, looking ridiculous. Buffy rolled her eyes. Of course the self-centered coward had run. “Typical,” she muttered. “Gonna leave me to it, you wuss!” she shouted at the darkness.

   She half expected a snarky comment from the sidelines about being able to handle it on her own, slayer and all, but instead all she got was a malignant laugh from the demon. “Come back to get your head handed to you?” the creature chuckled.

   “You’re the one whose head isn’t on straight, if you think you can beat me,” Buffy snapped.

   “I can beat you, and break you, and suck out your marrow,” the giant taunted. “I can twist your head off with a flick of my fingers. Just like I did your boyfriend.”

   “What...?”

   Buffy looked around. Spike was curiously absent. The man who had been itching for a good kill had somehow walked away from a serious fight with a creature who was attacking the woman he claimed was the love of his life? Yeah... right. “What did you do?”

   She already had a dark suspicion even before the giant laughed and brushed a sprinkling of dust from his face.

   “No....”

   This thing took off heads. It had taken a head. It had taken Spike’s head, and he was dust, and Spike was dust, his head had been twisted off and he was dust and she was alone in this fight and....

   “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, denying it to herself as much as to the giant. “He’s not. He’s _ not! _ ”

   She moved automatically, going for the creature with the t-bar, slashing at it, making a deep gouge in its chest. It growled and lashed back at her, trying to muddle her, but she wasn’t having that. “He’s not!” she bellowed. “He’s not, he’s not, he’s not!”

   She was plunging the iron bar in over and over again now, and it didn’t seem to have any effect. But she couldn’t stop. Her arm kept moving, automatically, over and over and over, again and again. “He’s not,” she kept saying. “He’s not. He’s not!”

   And it was dead. She barely realized it had been down for a good minute. Her hands were covered in blackish giant blood, and the thing was groaning and then finally its huge hands stopped flailing and it collapsed into a giant pile of... giant.

   Buffy stared down. Heads on barbed wire, glazed giant eyes staring up at the dark grey sky.

   Grey sky. The sun was rising. “Spike!” she shouted. “Spike!”

   There was no response. Heads twisted off. Dust. She hadn’t expected there to be, but she looked around the area anyway in the growing light. There was no telltale patch of black, no pale blond hair shining out of the darkness. Spike was not there. He’d said he’d hang about… but there was still dust on the giant’s face….

   She waited.

   She didn’t really realize she was waiting, but she blinked and she realized she was down on her knees, and had been there for a long time in the darkness, and the sun had climbed. She hadn’t blacked out. She remembered every second of the climbing sun, the brightening sky, the rising birdsong, the disgruntled sheep. She’d been right there for all of it, but it had still crept up on her surprisingly quickly. She was there, and she wasn’t. She was waiting... and she knew there was nothing to wait for.

   The giant seemed to bubble and boil as the sunlight hit it, and she knew the thing would be a pool of foul smelling ichor before noon. Not that dealing with the corpse mattered. Nothing… nothing mattered. 

   She was on her feet. She was on her way home. There was no decision to go home, she was just going, automatic, her feet moving. She wondered, in some distant part of her idle mind, whether this would have happened after Dawn had been taken. If she hadn’t been surrounded by her friends after Glory took Dawn, would her body have just quietly taken her home? Because it wasn’t true that she wasn’t there. She remembered everything about those hours after Dawn had been taken. She remembered her friends shaking her, and Spike hitting her, and everyone trying to wake her up. But she hadn’t been asleep. She just hadn’t been responding.

   It was true that some part of her was hiding in a subconscious story realm of death and abandonment, where Willow had eventually found her. There was probably some part of her in a subconscious story realm now, too. But the point of the subconscious is that one is not aware of it. Whatever was happening there, her consciousness couldn’t reach it any more than her friends had been able to reach her before.

   And after waiting what it had deemed a reasonable amount of time, her body walked her home.

   She came home to bustling and busyness as Willow was helping Dawn get ready for school. “Hey, Buffy, another all nighter?”

   She waited for a response, but Dawn shouted something about not being able to find her hairbrush, and Willow rolled her eyes, and said, “Sheesh. Were we this scatterbrained when  _ we _ were in high school? I think not!”

   Buffy didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. She was still on some kind of autopilot.

   She climbed the stairs to her room and curled up on her bed. And then time passed and it was the afternoon, and Dawn had come home, and she shouted that she was back, and she popped upstairs, and saw Buffy on her bed, and came back out, and when Willow got home Buffy heard Dawn say that Buffy was asleep.

   But Buffy wasn’t asleep. And she wasn’t awake. She just... was.

   She had to pee, and her body got up and did that. And the others were downstairs, and getting dinner, and someone called her downstairs to get it, and she walked downstairs, and Xander was there, and Anya, and they were talking about... something. It didn’t matter. Anya was on about the wedding again. Dawn said something... Buffy didn’t care.

   Then, “Are you going out to patrol?”

   Dawn was the one asking. She was right. That would be easier. Buffy nodded and pulled a stake from the kitchen drawer before heading out the door.

   “Oh... well. Okay. Later, Buffy!” Xander called out.

   Buffy didn’t answer. And really... they’d barely noticed she hadn’t spoken. Everyone so wrapped up in themselves.

   She walked and then she was where she was always headed. Spike’s crypt.

   And it was empty.

   She’d known it would be empty.

   She went inside... and she sat down.

   Were those tears?

   She curled up on the green chair and let tears fall down her face for she didn’t know how long.

   Eventually she stood, deliberately going to the sideboard and fiddling with the box of matches she knew was over there. She lit a few candles, one, two, three... her arm felt heavy, but she kept on with it. Candle. Candle. Spike loved his stupid candles.

   How was she supposed to make sense of this? She hated Spike, right? She didn’t know what she was feeling, or if she was grieving or what. She was crying, but she seemed to feel nothing. And nothing was what she was going to keep feeling, wasn’t it? Because the only time she ever felt anything was when Spike was there, when she could touch him and taste him, when she could fight him and fuck him, when he whispered tenderly to her or hurt her or twisted her up inside. She didn’t feel  _ human _ without the monster to make her real.

   And he was gone. He was dust. He was never coming back.

   She went down the ladder to his lower chamber, where she knew he kept a trunk full of clothes. And there was his bed, and there on the ground was one of his t-shirts, unwashed and rumpled. She reached down to pick it up and inhaled the scent of him. Spike. Spike. Oh god, it was real, wasn’t it.

   She curled up on his bed as the tears wracked her body. She wasn’t sure if they weren’t even tears of terror, because what was she going to do now? How could she ever feel anything?

   Spike was gone.

   It.

   Wasn’t.

   Right.

***

 

   Spike growled and crawled out from under the sodding mud. This had been, without a doubt, one of the  _ worst _ days he’d ever spent.

   It wasn’t the first time he’d had to try and escape from the sun under the earth, but usually he had time to dig himself a bit of a burrow, first. He wasn’t one to sleep like the dead, unlike some vampires he could mention, and he liked being up and about during the day. He’d picked that up from Angel. A big lair meant you could spend half your day doing stuff, reading, playing cards, watching telly, being... well... human. And he’d bloody missed Passions!

   Not to mention the worms in his hair. 

   He had come to with his lungs filled with river water, his body bruised, and his coat in need of some serious dry-cleaning. And he’d come to in a sodding empty wasteland of farmer’s fields without a house within reaching distance, and the sun already cresting the horizon. He’d had to burrow a hollow in the soft river mud as quickly as possible before “lightly seared” became “burnt to a cinder.”

   And there he had to stay until the sun set. Most of the time he bloody loved being a vampire. And sometimes....

   He tried to shake the mud from his ears.

   He dove into the twilit river and scrubbed mud off himself. He found a sandbar, took off his clothes, and rinsed them all out, piece by piece. Yeah, they were still sodden with river water, but they no longer stank. He had to empty his boots out, even, and his coat.... God, he hoped he had enough dosh squirreled away for the dry cleaners, because the poor thing looked miserable.

   He forced his wet clothes back over his body and sighed. The river had taken him some miles from Sunnydale, but he could see the glowing dome of its streetlights arching into the sky. It was going to be a hell of a walk back. Maybe he could steal a ride? Hard to do when he couldn’t hurt humans....

   One of the worst sodding days ever.

 

***

 

   It was hours before he managed to make it back to Sunnydale. He never did manage a ride. Trudging in wet boots, still convinced he could smell mud in his coat. He was sure he was getting a blister. Vampires weren’t, to his annoyance, immune to blisters. Quite the contrary, they flared up like being burned. Bloody demon. Bloody river. Bloody Buffy seeing him lose....

   Oh, she was going to tease him mercilessly for this. “Oh, the great and powerful Spike, losing to a widdle demon.” Okay, so it was a bloody gigantic demon, she’d still think he should have won. She liked him hard. She’d only ever shag him when he was playing it snarky, powerful, dominant, sometimes downright cruel. Whenever he was soft, spoke of his love, or talked about needing anything but her fists and her cunt she shut down, closed off, and walked away. Every time.

   If she only accepted him hard, what would losing do to his image?

   Could hardly bear thinking on.

   He expected it to be dark when he got home, and he’d trudged in not expecting anyone to be there. If he hadn’t been exhausted, he would have noticed her presence before he opened the door. As it was, he was inside before he realized there was light, and to his surprise found a few of his candles lit already.

   Was someone here? “Hello?” he asked.

   He sniffed. The only scents were himself, Buffy, and a whiff of Clem, who had shown up a few days ago and probably left some shedding skin on the chair.

   He heard a sound from below the crypt, and a head popped up from the ladder. It was Buffy. Her eyes were hollow and she was wearing the same shirt she’d had on the night before. It looked slept in. “Spike?”

   “Yeah?”

   She stared. “You’re dead.”

   Spike raised an eyebrow. “Am I now?”

   She blinked at him stupidly from the hole in the floor. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

   “Says who?”

   “The... giant. Said you were dead. He took off your head, he....”

   Spike shrugged. “Yeah, well, some mistake, then, ‘cause I’m no deader than usual.”

   “He said you were dead!” Buffy yelled. She clambered furiously out into the floor, glaring at him. “You bastard, he said you were dead!”

   Spike cringed. “Sorry to disappoint.”

   “You were supposed to be dead!” Buffy screamed at him, and to his surprise she flew at him. She was pounding on his chest, punching at him, beating him back until he was afraid she’d shove him right out the door. He shifted sideways, letting her punch him back against the wall instead, but that effectively cornered him, and she wouldn’t let up. He heard a rib crack. “God damn you! God damn you, you stupid bastard, how dare you!”

   “I-I didn’t...!” Spike wasn’t sure what it was that he was supposed to have done.

   “You’re supposed to be dead!” she screamed at him. “You were supposed to hang about! How could you let me think you were dead?”

   “I didn’t, all right?” he said, grabbing hold of her arms.

   “I called out to you!” she yelled. “I looked for you, you  _ weren’t – there! _ ” She broke free and hit him again with each of the last words. “You were dust! He showed me dust!”

   “Well, the demon lied, didn’t he!” Spike yelled back into her face.

   “Where the hell were you!”

   “I lost the fight, all right? Bugger dipped me in the river. Got a bit woozy and waterlogged.” He coughed for emphasis, and wow, actually coughed up a bit more river water. He’d probably be doing that for days, actually, even though he had been doing it for effect. He spat it aside and looked up at her, hoping for sudden sympathy.

   He was disappointed. “You should have come back!”

   “I had to dig to hide from the sun!” Spike said. “Excuse me for not being keen on bursting into flame!”

   “How dare you?” she said. “How dare you, you bastard! How dare you let me think you were — god _ damn _ you!” And she hit him again.

   “I’ve bloody had enough of this,” Spike snapped, hitting her back, and  _ god _ it felt good.

   “Ooh, you’re gonna get it now,” Buffy murmured, and they were fighting again.

   So what else was new?

   Spike wasn’t up to it. He was knackered, the day hiding under the mud had sapped his strength, and he was already bruised, and he hadn’t eaten. He fell beneath her blows pitifully quickly, able to give back as good as he got for only a few minutes.

   He was afraid, actually afraid, that she’d leave after she punched him in the nose and he fell. He wasn’t strong enough. That usually meant she’d leave....

   But no. She kept hitting him and hitting him as he lay on the ground, mostly on his chest, where it didn’t hurt much. “Damn you,” she kept saying. “Damn you, damn you....”

   And it took him a moment to realize... she was crying. Her face was blotchy and her eyes were red and... and she had been crying for a while.

   “Buffy....” He steeled himself against the blows and just reached up to take her cheek. She wouldn’t have it, slapping his hand away, so he put it back more insistently and grabbed her hair.

   It was ugly. What should have been a gentle caress she’d made him turn into a yank as he pulled her head back by her hair. What should have been heart-felt sobs of relief were twisted rage tears and a snarl on her face. And what should have been a loving reunion had been a violent attack.

   God damn her.

   “I’m  _ here _ ,” he insisted at her, unable to keep the resentment out of his tone. He would have loved to hug and reassure her, but no, he’d have to do this hard. “Listen to me, bitch, I’m  _ here! _ I’m still here with you.”

   The tension faded from her face and she looked down, her eyes finally meeting his, but he didn’t dare let go her hair.

   “I’m still here.”

   The tears fell more freely. “Damn you,” she whispered. She reached for his shirt and lifted it up, scratching her nails over his bruised chest. “Damn you.”

   He knew how to do this.

   “Yeah,” he said. “You go right ahead.” He helped lift her shirt over her head, and she shrugged out of it artlessly before she fell back over him and smothered his face with fierce, furious kisses.

   It was not gentle. She was rarely gentle, but there was a more desperate tone to her anger tonight. But unlike the first time, or the second time, or the other times, she wasn’t even pretending she wasn’t doing it. Clothing was removed quickly but deliberately, without the abandon of their previous trysts. It seemed less like she was surrendering herself to passion and more like she was quickly and purposely claiming him and his body as her own property.

   This arm was hers, and this pectoral, and this shoulder, and this hip, piece after piece of him, touched, claimed, bitten, owned. She shrugged herself out of her clothing as if it was superfluous and then grabbed his cock with a fist before she planted it inside her, riding him steadily, wrapping her body around his as if afraid he was going to get away. “Damn you,” she whispered. “Damn you, damn you....”

   “It’s all right, love. I’m here,” he whispered back. “I’m here. Flesh and blood. Yours.” He kissed her, and she groaned.

   “I’m yours,” he breathed in her ear.

   When they were finished she lay atop him for a long while, holding him tightly, just breathing in his scent. Her hot breath steamed on his neck, and it was so beautiful he wanted to cry himself. “Buffy,” he breathed.

   She gave a breath like a sob and rolled off him into a twisted pile of sweating exhaustion. Spike lifted himself onto his elbow and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed and she looked so... tortured. He took a chance and kissed her cheek. She didn’t shove him away, so he did it again, then her jawline, then her lips, then her cheek again, over and over and over, smothering her divine face in gentle kisses. And she didn’t push him away, or bite him, or anything. She just lay there, as if half dead, accepting his tenderness.

   “I love you,” he whispered. He didn’t say it often, she hated it so much. “I love you, I—”

   “Really?”

   He stopped. “Of course.”

   Her eyes had opened, and they’d fixed on his. They looked hollow, the pupils black holes that were trying to suck him in. No light could escape her eyes. “Don’t you dare,” she whispered.

   “Uh....”

   “Don’t you dare do this to me again,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse from yelling. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you  _ ever. _ ” She grabbed hold of the back of his neck and glared at him. Her voice was low and thick, but the emotion in it grabbed hold of his heart and made his head pound more than when she was yelling. “If I have to walk this hell, so do you. Promise me.”

   “Promise...?”

   “Promise me!” she hissed. “You are not allowed to die, or to dust, or to-to not be here. Do you hear me? Whatever happens, so long as I’m on this stupid planet, you have to be. Promise me!”

   “I promise,” he said readily.

   Her nails sank into his flesh. “I said promise!” she hissed.

   “I promise!” he said earnestly.

   “Swear!” she demanded. “Swear it, on everything on... on that love you think you have for me, swear it!”

   “I swear, Buffy. Buffy.” He kissed her face again, letting her claws dig gouges into his flesh. “I swear, I swear, I’m yours.” He looked down into her black-hole eyes. “I swear to you, I’m in this as long as you are. Whatever happens.” He kissed her softly. “You don’t off yourself, and neither will I. Deal?”

   “Just promise,” she said. “Like you did for Dawn. Promise.”

   He gazed into her, let her suck him in. “On everything I am,” he whispered.

   Her eyes closed, and she relaxed, the painful claws easing from the back of his neck. She was soft beneath him. Oh, she did that so rarely. He took the opportunity to kiss her again, covering her face and neck and collarbone with kisses as she lay as passive as a corpse.

   He cherished her body with his kisses, whisper soft lips and sensual nibbles, his hands passing over her arms and breasts and body as if painting a masterpiece, caressing her ears and her jawline with his lips, then returning to worship her mouth.

   She lay with her eyes closed for he couldn’t think how long, too couched in the miracle to count how often her sweet heart beat or her breath passed through her lips.

   And then she was gone.

   It wasn’t sudden, there was no violence, but one moment she lay passive and accepting beneath his tender ministrations, and the next she was sitting up and putting on her clothes.

   Spike lay gasping, staring up at her. “Buffy...?”

   She didn’t respond, just continued to slide her body smoothly into its protective covering. None of the anger or hatred she usually resorted to as she left. Just... nothing.

   “Buffy, don’t,” he said. “Not now, couldn’t you see it?” He reached up and pulled at her arm. “Don’t you see? You felt it, when you thought I was gone. Can’t you see what that means?”

   “I hate you,” she said evenly. It was so empty, no vitriol at all in it.

   “Then why....” He had to force breath to find the next words. “Why did you want me?”

   “Who said I did?”

   “You did!” he insisted, yanking on her arm. “If that’s not why, why shouldn’t I let myself dust?”

   She stared at him, her face impassive. “If I have to suffer, then so do you,” she said. “You promised.”

   His mouth opened, but he was dumbfounded.

   “On your so-called love, you promised,” she growled. “Were you lying?”

   He shook his head. “I could never lie to you. Not about that.”

   She nodded and hitched up her boots. Then she stood and went to the door.

   “Tell me the truth!” he called after her.

   She looked back.

   “Tell me you love me.”

   She said nothing.

   “Buffy, tell me!”

   “You promised,” she said.

   “Buffy!”

   She stared evenly for a long time, her black hole eyes unreadable. “I hate you,” she said gently, as tenderly as he’d declared his love for her a minute before. “I hate you,” she whispered.

   She opened the door, and stepped through it.

   Spike’s hand closed into a fist, and he grabbed the nearest thing to hand and threw it after the closing door with a roar. It was his heavy boot, and it hit the door with a thud.

   He wished it had hit her head.

   He rolled over and buried his head under his hands, gasping and shuddering with rage, love, loss, hatred, resentment. He was just like her. He didn’t want to live in this sodding world anymore where her hate read like love and her love went to bastards who treated her like dirt. He was going mad, he couldn’t endure this, and until now he’d always had an out. The sunlight, a rogue demon, hell, Angel would probably dust him no questions asked. But now she’d taken even that escape route away from him. Because she’d demanded a promise.

   And he never broke a promise to a lady.

 

***

Autumn, 2002. Spike’s Crypt

  
  


   Buffy knocked politely on the crypt door before opening it, knowing what she’d find, but half hoping it would be something else anyway.

   Nope. It was just Clem, just as she’d expected, lounging on the loveseat he’d added to the crypt, flipping channels on the wide-screen TV he’d obtained. Clem wasn’t exactly the most harmless creature in the world — he’d probably stolen that TV, and he was more than willing to wolf down live kittens, or at least let his internal snakes do so — but he was a heck of a nice guy.

   “Slayer!” He beamed at her with his dog teeth. “Good to see you again! I was half expecting you.”

   “Yep,” Buffy said, sliding inside. “Like the bad penny.”

   “Nah, it’s always good to see you,” Clem said, jumping up to give her a hug. “You bring your little sis this time, or...?”

   “Nope. Just me.”

   “You want a beer? Or a root beer? I got some A&W the other day. The good stuff, you know, in a keg?”

   “Um. Yeah, all right.”

   As Clem busied himself at Spike’s ancient fridge Buffy looked around the crypt. There was no sign of Spike. Clem would have said if he’d returned, of course. But instead every time she came there was a little more Clem around the place, a little less Spike. Clem had put a costume top hat on the old crypt statue by the pillar. He’d replaced Spike’s ubiquitous candles with brighter and more reliable electric lamps. The big room was more cluttered, more living room, no longer half sparing gymnasium.

   Buffy hadn’t asked to look in the lower chamber.

   “Oh, I recorded something for you the other night from the History channel, if you’re interested,” Clem said. “Aliens through the Ages, but I think most of the archeology is uncovering demon architecture. You interested?”

   “Um, yeah, though I mostly came by to drop off these,” Buffy said, setting a cardboard box on the sarcophagus.

   “Is that more mice?”

   “From Xander’s basement, yeah,” Buffy said. The live-trap in Xander’s building collected mice which everyone had been too squeamish to kill, until Dawn pointed out that Clem ate live mice, and he loved wild-caught house-mouse.

   It had become a perfect excuse to go back to Spike’s crypt on a regular basis. Just... you know... to check.

   “Thanks, slayer,” Clem said, pushing a frothing mug of “the good” root beer into her hand. “So, you want to hang out for a bit?”

   “If I’m not in the way...” 

   “Not at all. Mind if I pop a couple of those mice, though?”

   “Just tell me first so I can close my eyes,” Buffy joked. She actually wasn’t bothered by Clem’s snakes, but they had been a bit of a shock the first time he’d let his face down and revealed them.

   Buffy curled up on the couch, and Clem sat down on the other side, a bag of Bugles between them, watching trashy pseudo-history. When the show was over Clem asked, “Want to watch something else, or did you have to get home?”

   Buffy looked at her watch. There was no good reason not to go home. Spike wasn’t here. And he wasn’t coming back tonight.

   “Yeah. I should go. Do you…?” She could never help asking. “Any word of Spike coming back?”

   “Nothing yet,” Clem said. “I....” He stopped and frowned at her, his skin sagging more around his eyes. “You know, he might not be coming back.”

   Buffy swallowed, but didn’t show any emotion. “No. He’ll come back.”

   “He... seemed a bit out of it when he left, slayer,” Clem said. “You know it’s possible he... did something stupid.”

   “I’m sure he did,” Buffy said ruefully.

   “I mean gotten into trouble,” Clem clarified.

   “I’m sure he did that, too.”

   Clem looked at her seriously. “I mean he might be dust.”

   Buffy thought about this, and as always when the idea occurred to her shook her head. “No,” she said. “No. He might not come back for a while, but he’s not dust.”

   “How can you be sure about that, slayer?”

   How could she be sure? The rage and betrayal she’d felt after Spike had hurt her had been nothing to the rage and betrayal she’d felt when she’d thought he was dead. He might push too hard, he might screw up, he might do something stupid, but to do that again? He’d never put her through that again. Not voluntarily. She didn’t know what he was off doing, but whatever it was... it wasn’t getting himself killed.

   Buffy looked down and answered, more to herself than to Clem. “I know he’s not dust.” She looked up, sure in her heart that she was right. 

   “He made a promise.”

 


End file.
